Original subtitles

The Ark of the Covenant.

The sacred golden chest

that had the power to level cities.

In biblical times, it guided and protected millions of people.

And then it vanished.

Throughout history, many have searched

for the lost Ark of the Covenant.

And who could blame them?

After all, according to the Old Testament,

God himself instructed Moses to build the Ark.

And this golden chest was believed to have held

the power of the Almighty.

But how could such a coveted religious artifact

just disappear?

And is there a chance that the lost Ark

could actually be found?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

In this small town located on the outskirts of Houston

stands the King of Saints Church.

On the surface, it looks like any number

of churches scattered throughout the region.

But inside, there's something that makes it stand out

from the rest.

Within this church

is a remarkably accurate reproduction

of the Ark of the Covenant.

My father and I built this replica of the Ark

of the Covenant because it makes the Scripture

come alive in a new and unique way,

because you're not just reading a description

in a book or seeing a picture.

This is 3D-built according to the specifications

in the Scripture.

Exodus chapter 25,

Moses gives the blueprint or the detailed instructions

of how to build the Ark.

And that's the instructions we used to build this

with all the dimensions.

The Bible describes two cherubim,

which are winged sphinxes, and they're facing each other,

as we see here according to the Scriptures,

and the cherubim had the body of a lion,

the face of men, the wings of an eagle.

In other depictions of the Ark of the Covenant,

you see humanoid angels with wings, or cherubs,

but this reflects the description of cherubim

as we find in the Book of Ezekiel.

And they look upon the mercy seat,

which is the cover of the Ark of the Covenant.

Our congregation sees this Ark as a unique way

to show that God is king and Lord through the Ark,

which represents the kingship of God and also represents

a way that God spoke spiritually and through his written word.

We have this replica of the Ark of the Covenant

as a symbol of that importance.

Throughout history, the Ark of the Covenant

has been one of the most sacred artifacts

in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But just what exactly is the Ark?

Well, the Ark of the Covenant is fascinating

because it's the most important ritual object,

uh, that Judaism has ever had.

The Ark is first introduced scripturally

in the Book of Exodus, where God gives Moses instructions

to build an ark for carrying the Ten Commandments.

It has very detailed instructions.

It should be two and a half cubits long,

like, one and a half cubits tall

and one and a half cubits wide,

and it's plated with gold inside and out.

The Ark was covered by this gold lid,

um, called the mercy seat.

Now, it's also known as the throne of God,

mainly because we have a passage in 1 Samuel 4:4,

that mentions how God is enthroned between the cherubim.

So this indicates to us that this mercy seat

was, in fact, understood as the throne of God.

The Ark of the Covenant,

for a time, was the center of the Israelite religion.

It represented the presence

of the Hebrew god Yahweh on Earth,

meaning if there was a question that needed to be answered,

the Ark was the place that you would go and petition God.

If you went into battle,

the Ark would be taken, marched into battle.

As long as the presence of God, represented by the Ark,

was with Israel, they couldn't be conquered.

The Ark of the Covenant was God in the midst of the Israelites.

The presence of God himself

held within a golden chest?

Certainly a profound notion, which is perhaps the reason

why the Ark has long inspired

worldwide fascination and reverence.

The Ark of the Covenant is arguably the most important

and intriguing artifact in human history,

because we're talking about something made by human hands

that contains the power of God.

In fact, the word "ark" means "sacred container."

So, this is fascinating, this idea

that humans could build something that could contain

or create this kind of extraordinary divine connection.

It was an extremely powerful thing.

When the Israelites were wandering

through the desert for 40 years,

they not only carried the Ark with them,

the Ark kind of led the way.

It was their ancient navigational device,

the Israelites' ancient GPS that showed them where to go.

And the legend says it would zoom up into the sky,

move three days ahead,

and then the people would-would follow along behind it.

Many people are familiar

with the famous story of the parting of the Red Sea

during the Exodus narrative,

when the Israelites were escaping Egypt.

A lot of people aren't familiar with the story in Joshua 3,

of the parting of the Jordan River.

The priests who are carrying

the Ark of the Covenant just touch their toes

into the Jordan River, and the Jordan River itself parts.

And the Israelites are able to march into the Promised Land.

So the whole story is designed to tell the reader,

"This is God at work here."

What's interesting is that there's this great debate:

was the Ark of the Covenant real, or was it just made up?

I actually think it was very real,

and the reason I think it's real

is that it's such a central part of the Israelite religion.

Did the Ark of the Covenant actually exist?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining

an archaeological discovery that was made

in the heart of the Holy Land.

Central Israel, 15 miles west of Jerusalem.

Here, on a small rocky mound, lie the ruins

of an ancient Hebrew city known as Beit Shemesh.

According to archaeologists, Beit Shemesh

has a profound connection to the Ark of the Covenant.

Beit Shemesh has a long history

of being a religious center.

According to, uh, the story that we have in the Bible,

when the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Beit Shemesh,

the Israelites take the Ark,

and they put it on a stone table.

The understanding was that it was venerated by all Israelites.

We have this one object, the Ark of the Covenant,

that represents God on Earth.

Could the Ark of the Covenant have actually been kept

at Beit Shemesh?

Well, recently,

archaeologists have uncovered evidence which suggests

that the biblical story is, in fact, true.

In 2019, a team led by archaeologists

from Tel Aviv University made a startling discovery.

They found a room in which it seems to have evidence

of where the Ark of the Covenant was kept

when it was brought here at Beit Shemesh.

There's a big, flat slab of stone

that is exactly the same dimensions, proportions,

as the Ark of the Covenant.

This slab of stone

is not some column that fell on its side.

It was deliberately placed here.

And its dimensions,

its dimensions fit what the Book of Exodus tells us

were the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant.

It says it was a cubit and a half

on two cubits and a half.

A cubit is the size of a human arm.

A cubit and a half...

on two cubits and a half.

Just a bit bigger, maybe by ten, twenty percent.

So the Ark would be placed on it

in the most possible, stable way.

And everything dates to the time frame

of when the Ark was placed at Beit Shemesh.

Everything falls into place.

Not only did this discovery indicate

that the Ark was kept here, it's much more.

It actually indicates the Ark existed.

This discovery is possibly the most significant find

ever made in the context of the quest

of the Ark of the Covenant.

If the Ark of the Covenant was a real artifact

that was actually kept at Beit Shemesh,

then it begs the question,

where is the Ark now?

There are those who believe that the answer lies...

15 miles to the east,

in the holy city of Jerusalem.

Since its humble beginnings

as a small settlement around 3000 BC,

the city has been built, destroyed and rebuilt

numerous times.

Today it remains a holy site for three major world religions,

Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

But aside from its religious importance,

Jerusalem is also significant for another reason.

It is the last known location of the Ark of the Covenant.

Jerusalem has been

the most important place in-in Judaism

going back to King David, 1000 years BCE,

when he decided to move

the center of the Israel state to Jerusalem,

and all worship ended up being centralized there.

David's son Solomon decides to build a temple in Jerusalem.

The idea behind the temple is that

"We are no longer a nomadic people."

The Israelites were no longer a people

that wanders around without a land.

Now that the Israelites are a landed people,

they want a landed home for their God.

So from Beit Shemesh, they're going to take,

ultimately, the Ark of the Covenant,

and put it in Jerusalem.

Solomon built the temple on the Temple Mount,

and the center of the temple was the Holy of Holies,

and inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark.

And that was the only thing that was inside

that central, most sacred spot.

According to the Bible,

the Ark of the Covenant remained in the Temple of Solomon

for nearly four centuries.

That is, until 586 BC,

when the Babylonian army sacked Jerusalem.

They demolished Solomon's Temple,

including the Holy of Holies,

and the Ark of the Covenant simply vanished.

So, what happened to the Ark of the Covenant?

It just disappears,

and we don't have a biblical record

of what happened to it,

leading to all kinds of speculation

as to where it went and where it may be today.

One legend is that the Babylonians took it

and they hauled it off to Babylon.

But the reason why it seems not likely

it was carried off by the Babylonians,

'cause the Babylonians made a great inventory

of everything they took, and the Ark wasn't on the list.

So clearly, if they took something

that valuable, that important, it would have made the list.

There's no record in Scripture or in Babylonian texts

about the Ark being taken by the Babylonians

or being destroyed, so that means it's possible

it was taken away and hidden.

If the Ark of the Covenant was indeed hidden

before the Babylonians could capture it,

then the question is, where was it concealed?

It's a question that drives archaeologists to this very day,

and some believe the coveted relic

remains hidden in Jerusalem.

Or, to be more precise, below Jerusalem.

According to the story,

King Zedekiah, as soon as the Babylonians

were about to destroy the temple, hid the Ark somewhere.

Maybe in a vault beneath the temple,

maybe somewhere else.

We have no idea.

Jerusalem, particularly around the area of the Temple Mount,

has lots of cisterns, uh, dating to different periods of history.

There are all kinds of caves and tunnels.

There are caves literally everywhere in Jerusalem.

They are littering the whole city,

on the inside, on the outside,

and those are just the ones that we know of.

There are probably many other caves

that we don't even know about,

whether they have been purposely concealed,

or we just lost the entrances to those locations,

but they're everywhere.

One cave, which is really big in size,

north of the Temple Mount is called Zedekiah's Cave.

By a Jewish tradition, it's the very cave

King Zedekiah himself used

to sneak, to escape out of the city

as the Babylonians reached it.

If so, maybe during his escape, he also made sure

that the most valuable holy item of Judaism was hidden there,

the Ark of the Covenant.

Located 30 feet beneath the streets of Jerusalem,

Zedekiah's Cave is believed to have been first quarried

in the tenth century BC.

Today, many believe that further exploration of this labyrinth

might reveal the location of the Ark.

We are, right now, underneath Jerusalem's Old City.

We know for a fact, from 19th-century surveys,

that there are about 30 underground water reservoirs

and other facilities underneath the Temple Mount.

Unfortunately, since then, they have not been investigated again

nor excavated in any way.

But this site especially intrigues me

because it is so big, it has so many passages,

and about a quarter of it is still waiting to be exposed.

This cave is known since the mid 19th century,

and to this day,

we still don't know the full size of this space.

And maybe, if this cave was in use

in the time of King Zedekiah,

it could have been used also for hiding the Ark of the Covenant.

If you go exploring

under the Temple Mount, and I've been back

in some of the caves under the Temple Mount,

there are miles of these caves filled with tons of rubble.

And especially since it's sitting

right under the third-holiest site in Islam,

we can't go digging around under there looking for it,

because it would create a major international incident.

So I totally believe the Ark could easily be hidden

in one of these caves or tunnels under there.

Was the Ark of the Covenant

once hidden in a cave deep below Jerusalem?

It's a distinct possibility,

and archaeologists exploring the very same network of caves

recently made a compelling discovery.

A discovery which not only suggests

that the Ark may have been kept there

but also offers tantalizing clues

as to where it might have been taken next.

Almost 1,700 years

after Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians,

the holy city once again is occupied,

this time by an army of European Crusaders

known as the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar were

an order of holy warriors, essentially,

set up during the Crusades.

And from the very beginning,

they were noted for their secrecy,

for their secret initiation rites,

for the mystery that surrounded their activities.

They set themselves up to protect pilgrims

coming into Jerusalem from attack by bandits,

but they also insisted on being based on the Temple Mount,

which they believed was the remains

of the Temple of Solomon.

And why was the Temple of Solomon important?

Because it had a room within the temple

where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.

The Knights Templar home base was the Temple Mount.

But it wasn't just their home base.

They were looking for something.

The Templars were obsessed with finding spiritual relics.

Relics related to Christianity,

but also relics of the original temple.

Of all the artifacts

that the Knights Templar were looking for,

I think it's safe to say that their greatest obsession

was with finding the Ark of the Covenant.

The Knights Templar occupied Jerusalem

for almost 100 years.

During this time, they controlled not only

the Temple Mount but also the area below it.

One of the fascinating secrets of the Templars

is their use of tunnels.

So we know now, through a lot of archaeological digs,

uh, both in the Middle East and in Europe,

that there are tunnels that were connected

to Templar sites, particularly Templar strongholds,

for potentially hiding treasure or for moving treasure.

One of the secret tunnels in cave systems

used by the Templars was none other than Zedekiah's Cave,

and recently, archaeologists discovered

a Templar structure located within the cave.

This is, undoubtfully, work of the Crusaders.

This style of architecture, these slits for the arrows.

This is not a ventilation window.

This is definitely a tactical window,

so you could, uh, shoot arrows

towards an enemy approaching you.

This definitely had a protective purpose,

like a guardhouse in the middle of Zedekiah's Cave.

The Crusaders definitely created this

to protect their way out of Jerusalem

and perhaps, also, a passage to a place

where they could hide their most valuable items.

We know for a fact that the Templars was

a military order that held the Temple Mount,

which is at the end of this cave,

and on the surface.

While the Templars were controlling the Temple Mount,

they probably poked around it.

Who knows what they may have found?

Some scholars suggest that they may have even found the Ark.

Is it possible that the Knights Templar

discovered the Ark of the Covenant in Zedekiah's Cave?

And if so, could this fortified structure

be the place where they kept and protected it?

Some scholars theorize that if the Templars found the Ark,

they would have brought it to the very heart

of the Catholic Church:

Rome.

The Knights Templar were answerable

directly to the pope himself.

You have to remember that the Vatican is sitting

on 2,000 years' worth of treasures,

documents and secrets,

and it's under no obligation to share any of that with us.

And documents that have been kept under wraps for centuries,

including details on the Knights Templar,

have only recently came fully to light.

The Catholic Church has lots of secrets. It always has.

We can't even begin to guess at what is happening

in the basement of the Vatican Library,

held under Saint Peter's,

and all of these other locations in the Vatican.

And certainly, if the Church wanted the Ark of the Covenant

and were aware that the Templars had found it,

they certainly would have been able to obtain it.

Did the Knights Templar bring

the Ark of the Covenant to Rome?

Well, in 2019, a surprising clue was unearthed

in the pages of a medieval manuscript

that connects the Ark directly to the pope.

According to the text, starting around the year 1100,

the Ark was kept at the Saint John Lateran Church in Rome.

The Church of Saint John Lateran is arguably

the most important church in Rome.

Most people don't think that.

Most people think of Saint Peter's

as the most important church,

but Saint John Lateran is actually

the seat of the bishop of Rome, which is, in fact, the pope.

The Church of Saint John Lateran is an archbasilica.

This designation of a basilica means

that an important relic exists within this church.

So if the church had obtained the Ark,

then it makes sense that they would have taken it

to Saint John Lateran.

The legend is that the Ark of the Covenant was there

for 600 years.

And then, in the year 1745,

Pope Benedict XIV turns up at Saint John the Lateran

on a pastoral visit,

and he sees the Ark of the Covenant under a glass case.

For some reason, he didn't like what he saw,

and he ordered it to be taken away,

and it was never returned and it disappeared.

All evidence of the Ark of the Covenant

ever even being in Saint John Lateran

completely disappears the next day,

and no one ever speaks of it again.

So this question of Pope Benedict XIV

removing the Ark from Saint John Lateran

is-is a really fascinating one.

Did he remove this artifact, which may have been the Ark,

because he was protecting it, because he wanted to possess it,

because he wanted to take it somewhere else?

We don't know.

The idea that the Ark of the Covenant

was secretly kept within a basilica in Rome

for 600 years, it's a fascinating notion.

But the search for the Ark is not only motivated

by the desire to find where it's located,

it's also a quest to rediscover its awesome power,

a power that some want to harness as a weapon.

Southwest France.

This mountainous region is more than 500 miles from Rome

and almost 2,000 miles from Jerusalem.

According to yet another legend about the Ark of the Covenant,

the Ark was once hidden not in Rome

but in a 13th-century French fortress

located in this remote area,

the Château de Montségur.

Throughout France, there are legends from north to south

about the Ark of the Covenant being in the land there

at different periods of time.

One of the potential resting sites

of the Ark of the Covenant in France

was on the mountaintop of Montségur,

and it was a stronghold of the Cathar people.

Now, the Cathars were a Christian sect

that lived in France in the Middle Ages

and they had strong spiritual convictions.

So there is an idea that because these treasures

that were brought back from the Holy Land were spiritual,

and the Cathars were deeply spiritual people,

that the Church may have brought these treasures,

including the Ark of the Covenant,

to the Cathar people.

The Ark of the Covenant in Southern France?

It's an intriguing possibility,

one that, in 1936, caught the attention

of the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany,

Heinrich Himmler.

Himmler and Hitler were both obsessed with obtaining relics.

During the occupation of France,

there were a number of Nazi brigades that were

actually dispatched throughout the region of the Pyrenees

into Montségur in search of the Ark of the Covenant.

There are still tracks in the mountains today

from where the Nazis were mining,

essentially, in the mountains,

looking for these potential artifacts.

They truly did believe that the Ark

may have still been there in those mountains.

Heinrich Himmler was obsessed with occultism,

and you have to remember that the occult

had had a massive influence on Nazi ideology.

And it may seem crazy, but he sent people out

of these quests to find these sacred items.

The Nazis never found the Ark at Montségur.

But what compelled them to invest

so much time and effort into finding it?

Were they simply trying to find a magnificent golden chest?

Perhaps, but there are many who believe

that the Nazis had an ulterior motive.

The Ark of the Covenant

was particularly coveted by Heinrich Himmler

because it possessed enormous power,

and it was carried by the Israelites

in the long exodus to the Promised Land.

So when they fought their enemies

in order to establish their homeland,

the Ark of the Covenant would be carried before them

and would emit terrible power, smiting their enemies.

It brought down the Walls of Jericho

simply by its presence.

It emitted thunderbolts at the enemy,

and in the eyes of a Nazi, what was not to like?

They believed that this would usher in the 1,000-year Reich.

If you watch the movie

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,

all that magical stuff the Ark does, you know,

Steven Spielberg didn't make that up.

That's all in the Midrash. That's all in Jewish legends.

It's like a nuclear weapon.

So by legend, the Ark had these tremendous powers.

And that's why people wanted to take it with them into battle,

because it was powerful and dangerous.

According to, uh, the story that we have in the Bible,

when the Ark is coming up to Jerusalem,

this cart that it's on hits a bump or something

and it starts to tip.

And this nice guy named Uzzah reaches out

to keep it from tipping over, but because he touched the Ark,

God strikes him dead,

so everybody is terrified of this thing.

It has so much power it can just zap people dead.

Struck down by the wrath of God?

Perhaps.

But there are some who claim that there is a more

scientific way to explain

this extraordinary account from the Bible.

The Ark of the Covenant is a fascinating story

and concept, for that matter.

You have, in the biblical Scripture,

a description of a device.

It's got specific dimensions, specific materials

and specific structures and shapes.

So what the device is for is a whole other question,

but it sounds like a technological device

to store energy, like a modern-day capacitor,

because it is coated with a conductor, gold.

Then there is another material inside that

that is a nonconductor, wood.

And then it's got another layer of gold on the inside.

And that's exactly how we build capacitors.

There's a conductor, an insulator, then a conductor.

And then, on top of the Ark

are these wing-shaped pointing structures.

If you look at modern-day Tesla coils

and Van de Graaff generators,

we always put a probe on the top of it,

like a little needle or a little metal arm,

so that lightning can jump off of that.

It's a point of which the energy is transmitted from.

This sounds a lot like the Ark of the Covenant.

It has long been believed that the Ark of the Covenant

had some type of electromagnetic energy.

A power that is not supernatural

or spiritual in nature but very much technological.

So, the powers that it had,

the abilities that it was able to manifest,

to this day, is still a mystery.

Was the Ark of the Covenant a piece of ancient technology

that was thousands of years ahead of its time?

Perhaps, but according to the members of a church

located in Ethiopia,

the mysteries of the Ark can be best understood

not by turning to science

but rather by embracing faith.

A bloody civil war rages across the nation between

government soldiers and rebel militia.

The fiercest fighting is in the northern city of Axum,

where 800 Ethiopians give their lives

defending the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.

But why did so many

give their lives to protect the church?

Their sacrifice was made to defend an important relic

believed to be kept within a small chapel

adjacent to the church,

the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ethiopian Christians

claim to have the Ark of the Covenant

in the Church of... Called Saint Mary of Zion,

and their tradition of how the Ark of the Covenant

made its way to Ethiopia

is found in ancient texts called the Kebra Nagast.

The story is that the Queen of Sheba is Ethiopian,

and she hears of the wisdom and power of Solomon,

so she goes to the land of Israel to try him

with hard questions, and she is seduced by Solomon

and impregnated by him,

and she goes back to Ethiopia and has a son named Menelik,

who becomes the emperor.

The story that the Ethiopians tell us is that

when Menelik came of age, he returned

from his homeland of Ethiopia, uh,

to see his father, to meet his father,

and eventually, Menelik took the Ark

back to Ethiopia, which is where it remains to this day.

The last emperor, Haile Selassie,

builds this bunker-like building

that they call Saint Mary's of Zion Church,

and that's where the Ark is resting today.

They say.

Now, do they have the Ark?

That's the, that's the big question.

We don't know. That's the biggest mystery of all time.

I think they have something that they believe to be the Ark,

and they believe it with all their souls,

and they believed it for a couple thousand years.

So they have something that they believe.

There are more than 30 million Christians

living in Ethiopia today,

and they strongly believe that the Ark of the Covenant

is kept in Axum.

They also practice many of the same traditions

that the ancient Israelites did

in order to show their reverence for the Ark.

Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity

has strong Jewish links, in their language,

which is a language closely related to Hebrew,

but also in their culture,

they preserve many ancient Jewish texts.

They claim to be of Jewish descent themselves,

and they keep other Jewish traditions.

The Ethiopian language is called Ethiopic or Ge'ez.

Their language is very similar to Hebrew and Aramaic,

the languages of the Old Testament.

A lot of ancient, lost Jewish texts

that used to be part of the Bible, like Enoch and Jubilees,

were preserved by the Ethiopian Christians.

And they also claim to preserve and keep

the one true Ark of the Covenant.

Is it possible that the Ark of the Covenant

is kept within the Church of Saint Mary of Zion in Ethiopia?

That's a fascinating idea.

But one that is hard to prove,

because Ethiopians believe that only one person

should be allowed to be in the presence of the Ark,

a belief that was also held by the ancient Israelites.

What the Ethiopians have done is they've copied everything

that's in the Bible.

They mirror everything in history

that the ancients did in the temple,

and they do it the same way.

So they have one man, the guard of the ark.

He never leaves Saint Mary's Zion Church.

His job is to be the guardian of the Ark.

And he's sort of the representative

of what the high priest would be.

In the Jewish tradition, the only person

that was allowed into the presence of the Ark

was the Kohen Gadol, the high priest.

The high priest had a very, very special uniform

that he used, and he had

a very, very elaborate ritual he had to go through.

He'd have to immerse in a ritual bath multiple times,

he'd have to be in a state

of perfect physical and spiritual purity

before entering into the presence of the Ark.

This high priest would go in to visit the Ark of the Covenant

one day a year, and that was it.

No one else was supposed to go into...

Upon pain of death... Uh, see the Ark of the Covenant.

And this is part of this tradition

of this sacredness of the Ark

that we, the profane, right, we people can't touch

even the object that represents God on Earth.

The Bible says the one thing about the Ark

is that God had it specifically made

in the way he wanted it, and he wanted it to be used

the way he wanted it.

And the Ethiopians really accept this,

because they have been told since they've been little kids

that this is from God.

According to the writings, this object has been given

to the Ethiopians

and they are the holy keepers of the Ark,

and they are willing to give their lives that fast

if someone is gonna come and try and take

the Ark of the Covenant.

That's exactly what happened.

Military went in there with the guns and the people rallied.

People came by the hundreds to protect the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ethiopians believe with all their mind, heart, soul

that this is a holy object of God.

If the Ark reveals its secrets only to those

who are trained to be in its presence,

perhaps that explains why it has remained so well hidden

for thousands of years.

But what would happen

if the Ark is actually rediscovered?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining

an ancient biblical prophecy

which claims that the Ark will soon return.

Although the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant

continues all over the world to this day,

many believe that our best hope of finding the Ark

is by not looking for it at all.

Instead, all we need to do is wait,

because according to a biblical prophecy,

one day, the Ark will return.

It's interesting

that the Ark of the Covenant is not just mentioned

in the Old Testament,

it's mentioned throughout the Bible.

It's found in the Book of Hebrews but also

in the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation,

where the Ark of the Covenant appears

as a testament to the revelation and the end of the world

and the culmination of all things.

According to the Book of Revelation,

chapter 11, verse 19,

the Ark of the Covenant will not be revealed

until the end times.

Revelation 11:19, "Then God's temple in Heaven

"was opened, and within his temple was seen

"the Ark of his testament.

"And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings,

peals of thunder and earthquake, and severe hailstorm."

In that passage, um, the Book of Revelation describes

the lightning, the thunder that'll take place

when the Ark of the Covenant is revealed.

In Israel, there's a place called Tel Megiddo,

which is also known as Armageddon, right?

This is the place where the end-of-the-world battle

is supposed to take place.

So at the city, from the time

of the judges in the Old Testament,

many people feel that in the last days,

the Ark of the Covenant will be rediscovered there

in fulfillment of the... These, uh, ancient prophecies.

Is this the place where the Ark of the Covenant

will one day reappear?

Only time will tell.

But if and when that day ever comes,

one thing is certain,

the world would never be the same again.

The world that we live in today, we must remember,

is not a world that believes in miracles.

By and large, this Western society that we're a part of

does not believe that the Ark has the ability

to flatten mountains down and kill all the enemies.

So if the Ark is found today,

and it actually carries any kind of divine properties,

this is gonna have some monumental effect

on the way that we see

and think about the world that we live in.

I think the reason

that people are always looking for relics,

objects, the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant,

Noah's Ark,

is they're looking for tangible evidence

that will confirm their faith.

We have archaeology, and sometimes,

archaeology confirms the stories in the Bible,

and sometimes it doesn't.

But if we had the Ark,

somehow, people feel that that would just say,

"Aha, now I know that my faith is true,

that it's real, that it's confirmed,"

and people want that.

I think, for all people of faith around the world, it would be

a-a fascinating experience

to see this idea that something made by human hands

was able to contact God or even to possess the power of God.

But on the other hand, are we ready

to possess the power of God?

Is it a good thing in this day and age

to even play with the idea that such an artifact exists

that could have that kind of power?

Maybe it's for the best that the Ark remains hidden.

What do you believe?

Is the Ark of the Covenant a divine object

that contains the power of God,

or is it a myth,

designed to inspire reverence for the Almighty?

Well, it's safe to say that no matter where

the Ark is, or what it is,

people will continue searching for it in the hope that someday,

the mystery of the lost Ark will no longer be...

unexplained.

>>>>oakislandtk www.opensubtitles.org